Serranía de Chiribiquete National Park

Chiribiquete National Park, the largest protected area in Colombia, is the confluence point of four biogeographical provinces: Amazon, Andes, Orinoco and Guyana. It was established in 1989 and has been expanded twice since.

Crossed by the Equator, the park is located between the departments of Caqueta and Guaviare. It is one of the best preserved places on Earth. the park occupies about 4,300,000 ha (10,625,500 acres) and includes the Serranía de Chiribiquete mountains and the surrounding lowlands, which are covered by tropical moist forests, savannas and rivers.

Chiribiquete National Park is one of the few places where the fauna and flora of the Guiana Shield, Orinoco savannas, and Amazon rainforest converge. This leads to incredible biodiversity in the pristine and remote rainforest with table mountains that reach up to 1,000 meters in height.

One of the defining features of Chiribiquete is the presence of tepees (table-top mountains), sheer-sided sandstone plateaux that outstand in the forest and result in dramatic scenery that is reinforced by its remoteness, inaccessibility and exceptional conservation.
Serranía de Chiribiquete National Park

Malaysia National Park (Taman Negara Malaysia)

Taman Negara National Park was established as King George V National Park in 1938 and 1939.

The park was named Taman Negara National Park after independent in 1957, which literally means ‘national park’ in Malay. Estimated to be 130 million years old and with an area of 4,343 sq kilometers, the highest mountain in the peninsular, Gunung Tahan (2,187 meter) is allocated in the area. Taman Negara National Park has a reputation as one of the world’s oldest tropical rainforest.

Taman Negara is often referred to as the untouched jungle. As one of the mega-diverse countries in the world, Malaysia is endowed with forested areas with ecosystems that are millions of years old and home to at least 15,000 species of flowering plants, 306 species of mammals, 150,000 species of invertebrates 4,000 species of marine fish, 832 species of mosses, 700 species of fungi, 2,012 species of ferns, 3,000 species of orchids.

There are three main river systems that originated from The National Park, namely Sungai Lebir, Sungai Terengganu and Sungai Tembeling that flow through the states of Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang, respectively.
Malaysia National Park (Taman Negara Malaysia)

Tesso Nilo National Park

The Indonesian government established Tesso Nilo National Park on the island of Sumatra in order to preserve the park’s unmatched biodiversity.

This area has previously been logged but still harbors good numbers of large mammals, including elephants.

The park is one of the last large areas of lowland tropical rainforest in Indonesia. More than 4,000 species of plants have already been found within the park.

Promoted by WWF, Tesso Nilo was design to protect a remnant of lowland forest habit for critically endangered Sumatra Tiger and elephant. In 2013, Tesso Nilo National Park suffered massive encroachments associate with forest fires.
Tesso Nilo National Park

Virunga National Park

Democratic Republic of the Congo is arguably the most biodiverse country in Africa, best known for the green swatches of rainforest associated with the vast Congo River basin, but also home to the western slopes in the immense Ruwenzori and Virunga Mountains, both who are protected in Virunga Nation al Park.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, The Virunga National Park is situated along the Albertine Rift and is contagious with six other national parks in neighboring countries. It was first established in 1925 to protect the habitat of the mountain gorillas of the Virunga volcanoes and is the oldest park in Africa.

The habitats in park include active volcanoes, lave fields, snowcapped mountains, tropical alpine meadows, bamboo forest, health ecosystems, montane and lowland tropical forests, savannas, dry forests and freshwater lakes and watercourses.

The park is the home to two of the world’s most active volcanoes, the largest remaining population of mountain gorillas and a mountain range that boasts the only glaciers in Africa. Also it’s the only park in the world to have population of the three great ape species: the mountain gorilla, the lowland gorilla and the chimpanzee.
Virunga National Park

Shenandoah National Park

The Blue Ridge Mountains are a segment of the Appalachian Mountains in the United States. They extend from Pennsylvania through parts of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The Blue Ridge spreads through several national forests. The Shenandoah National Park in northern Virginia and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park also lie in the Blue Ridge.

Shenandoah National Park, Blue Ridge Mountains, Northern Virginia, US, was formed in 1935. The Park consists of 193, 357 acres with tree-covered mountains, trails, streams, waterfalls, and trout-filled pools and it is noted for its scenery, which affords some the widest views in the eastern states.

It is heavily forested with hardwoods and conifers: wildlife includes deer, foxes and numerous birds. Besides scenic overlooks, the park offers camping, fishing, horseback riding, hiking, nature trails and bird watching.

Forest consists of 1200 kinds of vascular plants.  A segregation of forest communities occurs because of differences in elevation, exposure and moisture:
Chestnut oak forests
Red Oak forests
Cove hardwood forests
Yellow poplar forests

Hundred of plant species including one hundred species of tree – now flourish inside the park. As the forest reestablished themselves so too, did Shenandoah’s wildlife. Today, more than 200 species of birds and 50 species of mammals exist in the park.

The skyline Drive north-south highway extends for 105 miles through the park and offers an opportunity to view the scenic valley as well as the Blue Ridge Mountains, Massanutten Mountain and the Allegheny Mountains.
Shenandoah National Park

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park, established in 1890, is located in the Sierra Nevada Range of east central California. It was once a site for the quest of gold in the early 1800s.

Yosemite National Park was accredited as a World Heritage Site in 1984 and the National Park Service claims over 95 percent of the property to be preserved wilderness.

Yosemite National Park contains over 761,000 acres of protected land, including sequoia groves and expanses of alpine wilderness.

In Yosemite National Park, more than 247 bird spices, 80 mammal species, 40 reptile species, 37 species of native trees and hundreds of native species of wildflowers have been recorded.

Yosemite National Park also is home to a large bear population.

Yosemite’s cliffs and waterfalls form a monumental landscape that has long been a scared national icon, a tourist mecca, and a focal point for conservation.

Prominent and popular, the smooth and sheer, gray pure-rock monolith known throughout the world as Half Dome sticks out above Yosemite National Park like a sore thumb – a massive one at that.

Other famous features include El Capitan, the largest single granite rock on Earth at 1230 meters and Mono Lake, one of the oldest lakes in North America.

Yosemite National Park, currently visited by nearly 3.5 million people annually, has continued to add and update amenities and various other research initiatives.
Yosemite National Park

Endau-Rompin National Park

Endau-Rompin National Park is the second largest park on the Malaysian Peninsular after Taman Negara.

The scientific study of the area was first conducted in 1892 by H W Lake, a miner and surveyor, accompanied by Lieutenant H J Kelsall.

Their research led to the forested enclave of Endau-Kluang being designated as a forest reserve in 1933, which later included the Lesong forest reserve in Pahang.

The park’s lowland forests are among the last in Peninsular Malaysia and have been identified as harboring unique varieties of plant life.

The park is also Malaysia’s last refuge of the Sumatran rhinoceros, although they roam only within the park’s remote areas.

Fed by three rivers that slide down from two plateaus, Endau-Rompin Park is also home to tigers, tapir, gibbons, deer, boar, countless birds, fish and rare plant species.

Pitcher plants or Nepenthes, some borne of aerial stems, grow in the montane forest, as do variety of orchids, herbs of the African violet family and medicinal plants used by the Orang Asli forest people.

This dense, lush habitat has nurtured several species new to science, including at least three trees, eight herbs, and two mosses, documented by the Malaysian Nature Society during its 1985-86 expedition.
Endau-Rompin National Park

Kinabalu National Park

Kinabalu National Park is home to Borneo’s highest mountain and some of the island’s best preserved forest. Kinabalu National Park is one of the first national parks in Malaysia and was gazetted in 1964.

It surrounds Borneo’s highest and world’s youngest non-volcanic mountain Mount Kinabalu covering an area of 754 square kilometers.

More than half of all Borneo’s flowering plants and the majority of its mammal, boards, amphibians and invertebrates can be found in Kinabalu National Park.

Due to an altitude range of 152 to over 4000m, the park features one of the world greatest biodiversities, which is the main reason for it to become gazetted as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. It is home to 5000 to 6000 plant species comprising 200 families and 1000 genera.

There are estimated 1500 species of orchids of which 77 are endemic to the park, including five species or slipper orchids of the genus Papiopedilium.

The mountain is a clearly visible and free standing phenomenon, towering over Sabah. The greatest attraction of Kinabalu Park is obviously Gunung Kinabalu. It is a hot spot of biodiversity, which draws it to the attention of bird watchers and plant enthusiasts.

The park has four different types of altitudinal forest, all exceptionally rich in tree and plant species.

The lowland is clad in mixed dipterocarp forest rising to lower montane forest who oaks, laurels, myrtles and conifers at an elevation of 1200m to 2350m.
Kinabalu National Park